The history of sci-fi

Yes, I'm still alive!
Just a short update as I am very busy these days! I found a great picture of the history of science fiction. Looks confusing when you first look at it but it soon becomes one god-damn-awesome-picture.

http://scimaps.org/submissions/7-digital_libraries/maps/thumbs/024_LG.jpg

Goodbye Glory

On march the 4th NASA's satellite Glory crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Glory was meant to collect various data of aerosols (smoke, air pollution etc.) and would have also collected irradiance information for climate study, water and energy cycles etc...
The crash was due to the Glory's launch vehicle Taurus XL which malfunctioned during the flight. Too bad, the costs were estimated to be close to 500 million US dollars. Half a billion. Poor taxpayers.

Anyway, RIP Glory, you would've served well!

Artist's impression of Glory in the space.

The launch. When everything seemed fine.

On the ground.

Twitter - Twitter of Glory program.
Wiki - Wiki of Glory satellite.
NASA - Official web page of the program.

Spot the Loser

I simply have to share this article with you (and for my personal archive). It is about identifying so called "Losers" in various relationships. It introduces us some charactheristics of "The Loser" and it helps us identify these people before any emotional or physical damage is done. Another name for this article would be: How to spot a douchebag.
I have met people with such characteristics in my life, but have never really thought of putting together these "symptoms" and making a logical conclusion that the person might be a harming element in my life.
Anyway, here's a really short extract:


1. Rough Treatment "The Loser" will hurt you on purpose. If he or she hits you, twists your arm, pulls your hair, kicks you, shoves you, or breaks your personal property EVEN ONCE, drop them.

2. Quick Attachment and Expression "The Loser" has very shallow emotions and connections with others. Typically, in less than a few weeks of dating you'll hear that you're the love of their life, they want to be with you forever, and they want to marry you.

3. Frightening Temper "The Loser" has a scary temper. If your boyfriend or girlfriend blows up and does dangerous things, like driving too fast because they're mad, breaking/throwing things, getting into fights, or threatening others - that temper will soon be turned in your direction.


7. It's Always Your Fault "The Loser" blames you for their anger as well as any other behavior that is incorrect. When they cheat on you, yell at you, treat you badly, damage your property, or embarrass you publicly - it's somehow your fault.

15. Bad Stories People often let you know about their personality by the stories they tell about themselves. The stories a person tells informs us of how they see themselves, what they think is interesting, and what they think will impress you.



I guess I'll have to stop hitting my girlfriend. (j/k)

"Hey, wanna see my doughnut holder?"

Identify the Loser - The abovementioned article.
Douchebag - Encyclopaedia Dramatica definiton of a douche.

The Dark Side of the Moon

Yes, again with the deceiving titles! This time I don't mean the famous Pink Floyd album but the actual dark side of the moon - the far side.
We are permanently destined to watch the near side of the Moon because the Moon rotates about its spin axis at the same rate that the Moon orbits the Earth (this is actually called synchronous rotation or tidal locking).
In my opinion, the near side of the moon is way more awesome than the far side. The dark side truly looks dark with all the craters - but the near side has all the trails and they look awesome and even awesomer when observed with telescopes. So we're quite lucky that we got "cooler" side. But those who prefer craters will probably like the dark side more!

Picture taken from Apollo 16

APOD - 1998 astronomy picture of the day with the above image
Wiki Moon - Article of the dark side of the Moon
Wiki Floyd - Article of The Dark Side of the Moon

Zoom me, baby!

Universe is awesome and I found (was given actually) two links that are especially interesting if you wanna take a close look of universe and the Moon. You can zoom in a lot.
With all the craters Moon is simply amazing when magnified (1st link). So is the universe. On second link you can zoom in the entire visible universe. You can observe most of the objects from NGC and IC sky catalogue and all 110 Messier objects.

Moon Map - Zoom in the Moon.
Sky Map - Zoom in the universe.

Terminator!

I bet you thought of that badass ultra-lethal robo'. Well, this post is not about him. It's about solar terminator - which is not half as deadly - but it is big. It's really big. Big as Earth, as a matter of fact.
So, solar terminator or twilight zone is acutally an imaginary line that separates the illuminated day side of planetary body from dark night side of a body.
I will not go into details, as always, because I want it to be suitable and understandable for all ages. Links below are for more information, if anyone is interested.

The grey line

Looks awesome from space, I know.


NOAA - Terminator article on NOAA
Terminator - And on Wikipedia.

Anniversary of first gamma-ray burst!

Today on 28 February 1997 the first GRB was detected. It lasted for 80 seconds. GRBs are the most energetic (eletrcomagnetic radiation) events known in the universe. The sources of GRBs are billions of light years away from Earth - which means that explosions are extremely energetic and extremely rare. And awesome.
Interestingly, the burst was detected by an Italian Space Agency (with the participation of Dutch astonomers) satellite (yeah, Italy has its own space agency) and not by NASA or ESA. Imagine that.

Happy birthday GRB 970228! ♥

An artist's illustration of GRB

GRB - Wikipedia article about this particular GRB.
Hubble News  - Hubble news article from 1997.